RECENT LITERATURE. 51 



entomology, as well as other branches of natural history, be made 

 more generally interesting ? Everybody cannot read text-books or 

 catalogues, or even Kirby and Spence ; and lighter books, like 

 Acheta Domestica's ' Episodes of Insect Life,' have their place too. 

 We are very pleased to see readable matter, not exclusively entomo- 

 logical, scattered through the works of such American writers as 

 Scudder and Holland ; and we should like to see the example followed 

 in this country. On the other hand, the extent of Dr. Holland's book 

 has left little room for detailed descriptions, the illustrations being 

 the main feature of the more technical part of the book ; and the 

 matter on many pages (p. 251 especially attracted our attention) is as 

 bald as that in the later volumes of Morris's ' British Moths.' English 

 as ^Yell as Latin names are attached to many of the species. We note 

 that many moths are being rapidly exterminated in America by the 

 extensive use of artificial light. Thus we read (p. 95), under Anisota 

 rubicunda, " The disappearance of the moth [in Pittsburgh] is due no 

 doubt to the combined influence of the electric lights, which annually 

 destroy millions of insects which are attracted to them, and to gas- 

 wells and furnaces, which lick up in their constantly burning flames 

 other millions of insects. Perhaps the English sparrow has also had 

 a part in the work of extermination." This moth is still common in 

 other localities in the United States ; but we have been informed that 

 the American representative of the European Deilephila yalii, formerly 

 common at Toronto, has almost disappeared from that locality during 

 the last few years, having probably been destroyed in the same way 

 by the electric lights. 



There is much more interesting and important information in Dr. 

 Holland's book which we have no space to allude to ; but we most 

 cordially recommend it to the notice of all lepidopterists who do not 

 confine their attention exclusively to one continent or one country. 



W. F. K. 



Aquatic Insects in New York State. Albany. 1903. [Bulletin 68.] 

 In this Bulletin of the New York State Museum, consisting of 

 300 pages and 52 plates, besides a number of illustrations in the text, 

 we have the result of work carried on at the entomological field- station 

 at Ithaca in 1901. The chief papers have to do with — Life-histories 

 of Dragonflies and Diptera (J. G. Needham), Aquatic Chrysomelidae 

 (A. D. MacGillivray), Aquatic Nematocerous Diptera (0. A. Johannsen), 

 The Sialididae of North and South America (K. C. Davis). 



W. J. L. 



Ichneinnonologia Britanica : TJie Ichneumons of Great Britain. By 

 Claude Morley, F.E.S. Pp. i-1, and 1-315. With one plate 

 and text illustrations. Plymouth : James H. Keys. 1903. 

 Six families of Hymenoptera are comprised in the suborder 

 Ichneumonidea, and, with the exception of certain members of the 

 Cynipidaj, all the species belonging to the group are generally under- 

 stood to be parasitic on other insects, spiders, &c. The family 

 Ichneumonidfe is again divided into five subfamilies, and one of these, 



